a day in the life of a latvian mom

I started without a plan… as usual.

Around the winter solstice, I took small pieces of paper and wrote sentences — not wishes in a fairytale sense, but states of being. Simple, honest things. Health. Calm. Steadiness. Warmth. Written in the present tense, as if they already existed, or at least as if they were allowed to.

Each day, I’m burning one. No rereading. No analysing. Just letting it go. Fire, smoke, and a quiet moment to myself in the middle of ordinary winter days.

I didn’t announce it. I didn’t decorate it. I didn’t try to make it meaningful for anyone else. It was enough that it felt meaningful to me. Only later did I realise something important.

Before doing this, I had felt the need to mark this time of year — the turning point around the winter solstice — but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know if something like this even existed. Out of curiosity, I googled it. And it turned out that it does.

Not as one strict ritual, not owned by any religion, but as a simple, human way of moving through the dark part of the year. That discovery didn’t change what I had done — it reassured me. It confirmed something I already felt: I’m on the right path. Moving in rhythm with nature, not against it.

On January 2nd, only one note will remain.

That one is different. It’s not something to hand over to fate or the year or the universe. It’s the one that stays with me. The one I plan to add to my grimoire — not as a spell, not as a promise, but as a reminder. A thread I carry through the year.

The best part of all of this?

It didn’t need to look like a ritual to work as one. It only needed to be true.

— Ilze

Merry Christmas, to you all!